Transforming Perception: Black Men and Boys

While there has been progress in the U.S. in terms of racial attitudes and opportunities, black men and boys continue to face challenges. This report presents original research, along with current studies in social psychology and neuroscience, offering an empirically grounded analysis of how emotions and fears about race shape behaviors and biases

Implicit Racial Biases in Prosecutorial Summations: Proposing an Integrated Response

Racial bias has evolved from the explicit racism of the Jim Crow era to amore subtle and difficult-to-detect form: implicit racial bias. Implicit racial biases exist unconsciously and include negative racial stereotypes andassociations. Everyone, including actors in the criminal justice system who believe themselves to be fair, possess these biases. Although inaccessible through introspection, implicit biases can easily be triggered through language. When trials involve Black defendants, prosecutors’ summations increasingly include racial themes that could trigger jurors’ implicit biases, lead to the perpetuation of unfair stereotypes, and contribute to racial injustice and disparate outcomes. This Note examines and critiques the current approaches that courts and disciplinary authorities use to address implicit racial biases in prosecutorial summations. Recognizing the inadequacy in these current methods, this Note proposes an integrated response, which involves lawyers, jurors, trial courts, and appellate courts. The proposed approach seeks to increase recognition of implicit racial bias use, deter prosecutors from using language that triggers implicit racial biases, and ensure that Black defendants’ equal protection rights are upheld

Post-Racial Ideology and Implicit Racial Bias

This study assesses college students from the University of New Hampshire (UNH) and their attitudes and opinions toward people of color, specifically looking at racial/ethnic identity and campus social climate. With 362 respondents from the University of New Hampshire who answered our online survey, it looked at the participants’ post-racial ideologies and the participant’s racial/ethnic identity. This study finds that there is a correlation between racial identity and post-racial beliefs. The study found that 82 percent of the student respondents did not believe that we, as a society, lived in a post-racial America. It was also discovered that the student respondents who did believe we live in a post-racial society (eighteen percent) were almost primarily White participants. The research also shows that in comparison to students of color, White students are more likely to believe that there is little to no racial prejudice or discrimination on UNH’s campus. While this data gives important insight into the racial attitudes at UNH, having a more diverse demographic and a larger sample size would improve the research

Black (or) Italians? The Construction of Blackness in Italian Context - Past and Present

Black (or) Italians? The Construction of Blackness in the Italian Context – Past and Present. In the last 30 years Italy experienced relevant changes due to its new configuration as a postcolonial country and land of transnational migrations, without ceasing to be an emigration country. From the official end of Italian colonialism and, later, from the Berlin Wall fell, the seas around Italy no longer constitute insuperable barriers but rather borders that are continously crossed. The arrival, the transition or the stable settlement of people coming from the Global South, the daily deaths in the Mediterranean Sea, the increasing presence of the so-called “second generations of migration” and the consequent social and demographic changes force Italy to deal with its postcolonial and, as Cristina Lombardi-Diop proposed, postracial status. The new social balances created by migration flows and the increasingly presence of Afroitalians have two simultaneous effects: on one hand they are re-defining the concepts of “being Italian” and of national belonging; on the other hand they are revealing that the racial identity of the Italians has been built up as uniformly white, with the consequent foreclosure of people who are not included in this “chromatic norm”. In this paper I focus on the construction processes of blackness in the frame of Italian historical and geopolitical context. Connecting the postcolonial present with the colonial past, I examine how the definition of the concept of blackness has been influenced by specific social phenomena linked to specific historical periods (as colonialism, migrations etc). I analyze both the representations of blackness in today’s Italy and how the common idea that “black Italian” is an oxymoron is increasingly challenged by the “second generations”

LGBT Equality and Sexual Racism

Bigots such as the trial judge in Loving have long invoked religion to justify discrimination. We agree with other scholars that neither religion nor artistic freedom justifies letting businesses discriminate. However, we also want to make manifest the tension between the public posture of LGBT-rights litigants and the practices of some LGBT people who discriminate based on race in selecting partners. We argue that some white people’s aversion to dating and forming relationships with people of color is a form of racism, and this sexual racism is inconsistent with the spirit of Loving. Part I provides a review of empirical literature on the prevalence of racial preferences in intimate relationships and shows that racial preferences are particularly pronounced among gay men. Part II supplements this overview with a qualitative exploration of how race informed the intimate experiences of people who sat for interviews as part of our ongoing study, LGBT Relationships and Well-Being. We also offer a theory that may partially explain sexual racism in the LGBT community. Specifically, exposure to mainstream gay culture may teach sexual minority men that race and desire are closely intertwined. In Part III, we propose ideas for further research, including a study that would test our theory

Philanthropic Paths: An Exploratory Study of the Career Pathways of Professionals of Color in Philanthropy

This study, commissioned by the D5 Coalition, provides a nuanced picture of the career experiences of 43 philanthropic professionals of color ranging from Program Officers to CEOs working in an array of foundations. Through an exploration of the perceptions, analyses, and career histories of people of color working in the philanthropic sector, this study aims to advance the field's understanding of the following questions:What are the career pathways of people of color in philanthropy in terms of how they enter the field and advance to higher levels of seniority?What factors do philanthropic professionals of color view as posing the greatest barriers and contributors to career advancement in the sector?What is the perceived value of and challenges to achieving greater leadership diversity in foundations from the perspective of professionals of color in the field? While not generalizable to the broader population of people of color working in the sector, interviews conducted with these individuals surfaced a set of potentially common points of entry and career pathways among professionals of color in philanthropy, as well as the factors that helped shape those pathways

#SocialJustice: Combatting Implicit Bias in an Age of Millennials, Colorblindness, & Microaggressions

Law schools, in an effort to produce practice-ready graduates, are in an opportune position to take the lead in confronting social justice. Many schools are shifting from traditional classroom instruction to more experiential learning environments which place students early in their academic pursuits in contact with clients and legal problems. While academic support originally focused on racial integration in law schools, today’s Academic Support professionals support students who are diverse in various ways. As professionals, we cannot assume that our diverse students do not carry bias. Implicit bias, a bias one is not consciously aware of, has the ability to derail relationships with clients and peers. Complicating matters is the general assumption that Millennials, the “colorblind” generation, are the most tolerant of all previous generations. Yet, studies have found Millennials just as susceptible to bias as previous generations. Thus, law schools have the responsibility to train their students to become lawyers who are capable of working with diverse groups of people and do so with the ability to mitigate their biases, which could potentially bring a fairer administration of justice. This training must go beyond informing students about implicit bias but also teach them mechanisms to combat such bias